TWENTY-FIRST TALK 433

religious teacher meant poverty and self-abnegation*
And yet that turned out to be a higher position in
reality than 'that of any king. There have been
several rajas who* have ruled over the whole of
India—I doubt very much whether any of you know
the name of one of those kings, and practically not
a person in the whole of this city would know them.
But I am quite certain there is not a person among
you, nor indeed in this great city, who has not heard
of the Lord Buddha. It is not the great king whose
name goes down longest and furthest in history, but
the greatest religious teacher. King Suddhodana
wished enormous power and fame without parallel
for his son, and he has had it, but not in the way that
he wished or -expected it. The power of the Lord
Buddha is greater than that of any earthly monarch,
and His renown has spread all over the world. The
more that men know of Occultism, the greater is
their reverence for that Mighty Person, and so is it
in many other cases. We seek, for those whom we
love, that which we have fcfad ourselves, that which
we know; and yet there may be greater things which
have not come to us, and which may be in their
karma, just as was the case with King Suddhodana.
Yet it is the last and most difficult test.

How must you take these trials ? Even then the
Master says you must be cheerful, ready to part with
anything and everything. In the darker forms of
magic they escape, or try to escape such pain and
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